Coefficient of gain
Network World, 1/4/99
After establishing our ranking of the most powerful people and companies,
we asked readers whether the companies and CEOs gained or lost power in
1998. Using that information, we come up with a Power Gain Index - and
you definitely want to be on the plus side here. The Power Gain Index is
determined by determining the difference in the percentage of respondents
who said the company gained power vs. those who said the company lost
power. The higher the Power Gain Index number, the more power readers
felt the company gained. A look at last year's number tells you whether
the company is picking up steam or falling back in the race.
Hyperlinked names bring you to more information about the company or executive.
Companies
'99 '98 Gain/Loss
PGI PGI
Cisco 58% 51% +7%
Lucent 56.3% 47.4% +8.9%
Microsoft 56.0% 82.1% -26.1%
MCI/WorldCom* 49.6% 25.8%/
33.9% +23.8%/
+15.7%
Intel 47.6% 63.3% -15.7%
3Com 43.2% 47% -3.8%
AT&T 35.6% 17.6% +18%
Compaq 34.8% 43.8% -9.0%
Oracle 32% 39.4% -7.4%
IBM 30% 20% +10%
Nortel Networks 27.2% 11.9% +15.3%
Sun 27.2% 44.2% -17.0%
Hewlett-Packard 26.4% 37.4% -11%
Bell Atlantic 26% 31.9% -5.9%
Network Associates** 23.6% NA NA
Sprint 21.2% 19.9% +1.3%
SBC 20.8% 14.7% +6.1%
Computer Associates 14.4% 13.5% +0.9%
Ascend 12.8% 15.5% -2.7%
BellSouth* 12.8% NA NA
US WEST* 10.8% NA NA
GTE 10% 23.1% -13.1%
Novell 10% -23.9% +33.9%
Newbridge 8.8% 2.8% +6.0%
Cabletron 4.0% 12.7% -8.7%
Netscape -13.6% 38.7% -52.3%
* MCI and WorldCom were separate companies last year. The '98 Index
number reflects their respective scores as individual companies.
** Not on last year's survey.
CEOs
'99 '98 Gain/Loss
PGI PGI
Bill Gates/
Microsoft 44.4% 63% -18.6%
John Chambers/
Cisco 41.2% 24.3% +16.9%
Bernie Ebbers/
MCI WorldCom 35.6% 22.3% +13.3%
Rich McGinn*/
Lucent 32% NA NA
Craig Barrett*/
Intel 30.4% NA NA
Mike Armstrong*/
AT&T 29.6% NA NA
Eric Benhamou/
3Com 24.8% 16.7% +8.1%
Eckhard Pfeiffer/
Compaq 24.4% 22.3% +2.1%
Lou Gerstner/
IBM 23.6% 13.9% +9.7%
Larry Ellison/
Oracle 23.6% 21.5% +2.1%
Scott McNealy/
Sun 21.2% 32.3% -11.1%
Eric Schmidt/
Novell 20.4% -6.8% +27.2%
John Roth*/
Nortel 18.4% NA NA
Lew Platt/
Hewlett-Packard 18.0% 18.3% -0.3%
Ivan Seidenberg*/
Bell Atlantic 17.6% NA NA
Bill Larson/
Network Assoc.** 16% NA NA
Bill Esrey/
Sprint 13.6% 9.2% +4.4%
Mory Ejabat/
Ascend 11.2% 3.6% +7.6%
Ed Whitacre/
SBC 10.4% 8% +2.4%
Duane Ackerman/
BellSouth** 10% NA NA
Charles Wang/
Computer Assoc. 9.2% 9.1% +0.1%
Terry Matthews/
Newbridge 8% 1.6% +6.4%
Charles Lee/
GTE 7.2% 14.7% -7.5%
Sol Trujillo/
US WEST** 5.2% NA NA
Craig Benson*/
Cabletron 1.2% NA NA
Jim Barksdale/
Netscape 1.2% 19.5% -18.3%
* Was not CEO when last year's survey was conducted.
** Company not surveyed last year.
Winners
Happy days at Cisco. Cisco took the top slot on the strength of a strong Power Gain showing.
The big winner is Novell. The LAN software company pulled itself out of negative territory and up four slots, thanks to the relentless efforts of CEO Eric Schmidt and the delivery of some key new products.
More than the sum of its parts. MCI WorldCom took the No. 4 slot with a big leap in its Power Gain index compared to MCI and WorldCom alone.
Look out for Lucent. 1998 was a good year for the hard-driving AT&T spin-off, which weighs in at no. 2 in Power Gain - ahead of such brand names as Intel, 3Com and Microsoft.
Forget the image of AT&T as slow-moving. Under CEO Armstrong, AT&T was seen as racking up major Power Gains in 1998.
Congratulations to Novell's Schmidt, who saw his personal Power Gain Index take a 27-point jump - making him the big winner here.
Bill Gates still topped the list of CEOs gaining power in 1998, although he didn't gain as much as in the prior year (that's good news to a lot of people who think he's already got enough power, thank you very much).
John Chambers of Cisco had a heck of a '98. He showed up at No. 2, behind only Big Bill, and saw a strong increase in his Power Gain Index score.
The cowboy leader of MCI WorldCom, Bernie Ebbers, made great strides in 1998, while IBM's Gerstner, AT&T's Armstrong and Lucent's McGinn also came away more powerful.
Losers
The big losers are Netscape and Microsoft. Netscape scored a negative Power Gain rating, while Microsoft, which took a big hit in its Power Gain rating for 1998. Netscape's problem was Microsoft. But what was Microsoft's problem? Was it the antitrust trial? The new delays in shipping NT? Bill's memory lapses?
The other half of the Wintel partnership also suffered in 1998. Intel saw its rating decline by nearly 16 points.
Sun took a big hit in 1998, while Hewlett-Packard also suffered a decline.
GTE had better hope its planned acquisition with Bell Atlantic goes through in 1999. The company saw its Power Gain Index drop by a baker's dozen for 1998.
The big losers, ironically, were two of the industry's biggest rivals: Microsoft's Gates and Netscape's Barksdale. Both registered serious dips in their Power Gain rankings for the previous year.
More bad news for Scott McNealy. Like Sun, he took a hard hit in his Power Gain Index, dropping 11 points.
The past year wasn't seen as a great one for GTE's Charles Lee either, with his Power Gain ranking dropping by more than seven points.
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